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Homegrown Extremists Tied
to Deadlier Toll Than Jihadists in U.S. Since 9/11 From the New York Times
WASHINGTON — In the 14 years since Al Qaeda carried out attacks on New York and
the Pentagon, extremists have regularly executed smaller lethal assaults in the
United States, explaining their motives in online manifestoes or social media
rants.
But the breakdown of extremist
ideologies behind those attacks may come as a surprise. Since Sept. 11, 2001,
nearly twice as many people have been killed by white supremacists,
antigovernment fanatics and other non-Muslim extremists than by radical
Muslims: 48 have been killed by extremists who are not Muslim, including the
recent mass killing in Charleston, S.C., compared with 26 by self-proclaimed
jihadists, according to a count by
New America, a Washington research center.
The slaying of nine African-Americans
in a Charleston church last week, with an avowed white supremacist charged with
their murders, was a particularly savage case.
But it is only the latest in a string
of lethal attacks by people espousing racial hatred, hostility to government
and theories such as those of the “sovereign citizen” movement, which denies
the legitimacy of most statutory law. The assaults have taken the lives of
police officers, members of racial or religious minorities and random
civilians.
Non-Muslim extremists have carried
out 19 such attacks since Sept. 11, according to the latest count, compiled by
David Sterman, a New America program associate, and overseen by Peter Bergen, a
terrorism expert. By comparison, seven lethal attacks by Islamic militants have
taken place in the same period.
If such numbers are new to the
public, they are familiar to police officers. A survey to be published this
week asked 382 police and sheriff’s departments nationwide to rank the three
biggest threats from violent extremism in their jurisdiction. About 74 percent
listed antigovernment violence, while 39 percent listed “Al Qaeda-inspired”
violence, according to the researchers, Charles Kurzman of the University of
North Carolina and David Schanzer of Duke University.
“Law enforcement agencies around the
country have told us the threat from Muslim extremists is not as great as the
threat from right-wing extremists,” said Dr. Kurzman, whose study is to be
published by the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security and the
Police Executive Research Forum.
John G. Horgan, who studies terrorism
at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, said the mismatch between public
perceptions and actual cases had become steadily more obvious to scholars.
“There’s an acceptance now of the
idea that the threat from jihadi terrorism in the United States has been
overblown,” Dr. Horgan said. “And there’s a belief that the threat of
right-wing, antigovernment violence has been underestimated.”
Counting terrorism cases is a
subjective enterprise, relying on shifting definitions and judgment calls.
If terrorism is defined as
ideological violence, for instance, should an attacker who has merely ranted
about religion, politics or race be considered a terrorist? A man in Chapel
Hill, N.C., who was charged with fatally shooting three young Muslim neighbors
had posted angry critiques of religion, but he also had a history of outbursts
over parking issues. (New America does not include this attack in its count.)
Homegrown Terrorism
Source: New America Foundation
Likewise, what about mass killings in
which no ideological motive is evident, such as those at a Colorado movie
theater and a Connecticut elementary school in 2012? The criteria used by New
America and most other research groups exclude such attacks, which have cost
more lives than those clearly tied to ideology.
Some killings by non-Muslims that
most experts would categorize as terrorism have drawn only fleeting news media
coverage, never jelling in the public memory. But to revisit some of the
episodes is to wonder why.
In 2012, a neo-Nazi named Wade
Michael Page entered a Sikh temple in Wisconsin and opened fire, killing six
people and seriously wounding three others. Mr. Page, who died at the scene,
was a member of a white supremacist group called the Northern Hammerskins.
In another case, in June 2014, Jerad
and Amanda Miller, a married couple with radical antigovernment views, entered
a Las Vegas pizza restaurant and fatally shot two police officers who were
eating lunch. On the bodies, they left a swastika, a flag inscribed with the
slogan “Don’t tread on me” and a note saying, “This is the start of the
revolution.” Then they killed a third person in a nearby Walmart.
And, as in the case of jihadist
plots, there have been sobering close calls. In November 2014 in Austin, Tex.,
a man named Larry McQuilliams fired more than 100 rounds at government
buildings that included the Police Headquarters and the Mexican Consulate.
Remarkably, his shooting spree hit no one, and he was killed by an officer
before he could try to detonate propane cylinders he drove to the scene.
Some Muslim advocates complain that
when the perpetrator of an attack is not Muslim, news media commentators
quickly focus on the question of mental illness. “With non-Muslims, the media
bends over backward to identify some psychological traits that may have pushed
them over the edge,” said Abdul Cader Asmal, a retired physician and a longtime
spokesman for Muslims in Boston. “Whereas if it’s a Muslim, the assumption is
that they must have done it because of their religion.”
On several occasions since President
Obama took office, efforts by government agencies to conduct research on
right-wing extremism have run into resistance from Republicans, who suspected
an attempt to smear conservatives.
A 2009 report by the Department of Homeland Security, which warned
that an ailing economy and the election of the first black president might
prompt a violent reaction from white supremacists, was withdrawn in the face of
conservative criticism. Its main author, Daryl Johnson, later accused the
department of “gutting” its staffing for such research.
William Braniff, the executive
director of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to
Terrorism at the University of Maryland, said the outsize fear of jihadist
violence reflected memories of Sept. 11, the daunting scale of sectarian
conflict overseas and wariness of a strain of Islam that seems alien to many
Americans.
“We understand white supremacists,”
he said. “We don’t really feel like we understand Al Qaeda, which seems too
complex and foreign to grasp.”
The contentious question of biased
perceptions of terrorist threats dates back at least two decades, to the truck
bombing that tore apart the federal building in Oklahoma City in April 1995.
Some early news media speculation about the attack assumed that it had been carried
out by Muslim militants. The arrest of Timothy J. McVeigh, an antigovernment
extremist, quickly put an end to such theories.
The bombing, which killed 168 people,
including 19 children, remains the second-deadliest terrorist attack in
American history, though its toll was dwarfed by the roughly 3,000 killed on
Sept 11.
“If there’s one lesson we seem to
have forgotten 20 years after Oklahoma City, it’s that extremist violence comes
in all shapes and sizes,” said Dr. Horgan, the University of Massachusetts
scholar. “And very often, it comes from someplace you’re least suspecting.”
Trump to focus counter-extremism program solely on Islam From Reuters
| WASHINGTON/SAN
FRANCISCO
The Trump administration wants to revamp and
rename a U.S. government program designed to counter all violent ideologies so
that it focuses solely on Islamist extremism, five people briefed on the matter
told Reuters.
The program, "Countering Violent
Extremism," or CVE, would be changed to "Countering Islamic
Extremism" or "Countering Radical Islamic Extremism," the
sources said, and would no longer target groups such as white supremacists who
have also carried out bombings and shootings in the United States.
MORE
Such a change would reflect Trump's election
campaign rhetoric and criticism of former President Barack Obama for being weak
in the fight against Islamic State and for refusing to use the phrase
"radical Islam" in describing it. Islamic State has claimed
responsibility for attacks on civilians in several countries.
The CVE program aims to deter groups or
potential lone attackers through community partnerships and educational
programs or counter-messaging campaigns in cooperation with companies such as
Google (GOOGL.O) and Facebook (FB.O).
Some proponents of the program fear that
rebranding it could make it more difficult for the government to work with
Muslims already hesitant to trust the new administration, particularly after
Trump issued an executive order last Friday temporarily blocking travel to the
United States from seven predominantly Muslim countries.
WATCH
Still, the CVE program, which focuses on U.S.
residents and is separate from a military effort to fight extremism online, has
been criticized even by some supporters as ineffective.
A source who has worked closely with the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on the program said Trump transition team
members first met with a CVE task force in December and floated the idea of
changing the name and focus.
In a meeting last Thursday attended by
senior staff for DHS Secretary John Kelly, government employees were asked to
defend why they chose certain community organizations as recipients of CVE
program grants, said the source, who requested anonymity because of the
sensitive nature of the discussions.
Although CVE funding has been appropriated by
Congress and the grant recipients were notified in the final days of the Obama
administration, the money still may not go out the door, the source said,
adding that Kelly is reviewing the matter.
The department declined comment. The White House
did not respond to a request for comment.
PROGRAM CRITICIZED
ALSO IN
POLITICS
Some Republicans in Congress have long assailed
the program as politically correct and ineffective, asserting that singling out
and using the term "radical Islam" as the trigger for many violent
attacks would help focus deterrence efforts.
Others counter that branding the problem as
"radical Islam" would only serve to alienate more than three million
Americans who practice Islam peacefully.
Many community groups, meanwhile, had already
been cautious about the program, partly over concerns that it could double as a
surveillance tool for law enforcement.
Hoda Hawa, director of policy for the Muslim
Public Affairs Council, said she was told last week by people within DHS that
there was a push to refocus the CVE effort from tackling all violent ideology
to only Islamist extremism.
"That is concerning for us because they are
targeting a faith group and casting it under a net of suspicion," she
said.
Another source familiar with the matter was told
last week by a DHS official that a name change would take place. Three other
sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said such plans had been discussed
but were unable to attest whether they had been finalized.
The Obama administration sought to foster
relationships with community groups to engage them in the counterterrorism
effort. In 2016, Congress appropriated $10 million in grants for CVE efforts
and DHS awarded the first round of grants on Jan. 13, a week before Trump was
inaugurated.
Among those approved were local governments,
city police departments, universities and non-profit organizations. In addition
to organizations dedicated to combating Islamic State's recruitment in the
United States, grants also went to Life After Hate, which rehabilitates former
neo-Nazis and other domestic extremists.
Just in the past two years, authorities blamed
radical and violent ideologies as the motives for a white supremacist's
shooting rampage inside a historic African-American church in Charleston, South
Carolina and Islamist militants for shootings and bombings in California,
Florida and New York.
One grant recipient, Leaders Advancing &
Helping Communities, a Michigan-based group led by Lebanese-Americans, has
declined a $500,000 DHS grant it had sought, according to an email the group
sent that was seen by Reuters. A representative for the group confirmed the
grant had been rejected but declined further comment.
"Given the current political climate and
cause for concern, LAHC has chosen to decline the award," said the email,
which was sent last Thursday, a day before Trump issued his immigration order,
which was condemned at home and abroad as discriminating against Muslims while
the White House said it was to "to protect the American people from
terrorist attacks by foreign nationals."
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